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GOP elite embraces Portman gay marriage switch

Rob Portman's reversal might have met a different reaction a few years ago. | AP Photo

“The political consulting class in the Republican Party is, and has been for a long time, well to the left of the Republican voters. Whether folks like that or not, it’s just plain true,” said GOP strategist Curt Anderson, no squish himself.

Republican media consultant Nick Everhart, whose Ohio-based firm has worked for a number of the most conservative Senate candidates during the past few cycles, said there’s clearly a “disconnect” between the party in D.C. and the base in the states.

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“It’s clear that a number of the institutions in Washington aren’t cognizant of the fact that there is a disconnect and they’re on the polar opposite side of where the GOP primary electorate is,” Everhart said. “It’s going to continue leading to disagreement and rancor with the base.”

Actual elected officials are more skittish about getting crosswise with the party base on a central values issue like marriage. Of all the signatories to the pro-gay marriage amicus brief, only one was a Republican who actually has to face the voters in a remotely competitive election: New York Rep. Richard Hanna. There are others sympathetic to the same-sex marriage cause, or at least utterly indifferent to the outcome, but they’ve kept quiet so far.

Portman – himself a former staffer who came up through the ranks of the Washington GOP establishment – could have been speaking for any number of other Republicans when he suggested to CNN that he’d been largely disengaged from the marriage debate since joining the Senate.

“I’m on the Budget Committee, the Finance Committee for a reason. Those have always been my primary issues and my focus,” he said. “This is where I am for reasons that are consistent with my political philosophy, including family values, including being a conservative who believes the family is a building block of society.”

Whatever consultants’ personal feelings about issues like gay marriage, there’s little indication so far that Republican strategists are any less willing to consult for candidates who stump for the opposite view.

Unless that changes, Republicans say, there’s a limit to the actual impact that socially liberal-minded operatives might have. Discreet cheering for Portman isn’t about to transform the Republican Party.

“While the consultants may be ready [to support gay marriage] and while younger people may be ready, their bosses aren’t – the candidates. If you’re a consultant, it’s not your job to be publicly ahead of your candidate on an issue,” said one youthful GOP strategist. “The consultants can vote independently and how they like, but if they’ll still continue to work for candidates who are socially conservative, it’s their job to elect the candidate as-is.”